


Roscoe County Night Shift

by Crossroad



Category: Original Work
Genre: Genre Savvy, Horror, Inspired by Welcome to Night Vale, Lovecraftian, Multi, Original Fiction, Original Universe, Police, Police Procedural, Psychological Horror, Racist Language, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-05 15:14:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18368633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crossroad/pseuds/Crossroad
Summary: A city patrol officer, Charles Hawthorne, and his wife Emily move out to a rural county in east Texas to raise their newborn baby. Having found work with the Roscoe County Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Ulridge and his Deputies must train Hawthorne how to operate in the seemingly harmless county when things get "real," as his superiors put it.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This prologue is a little teaser for a new work I want to start working on. Think about what a law enforcement officer would have to deal with in a county where the walls between reality and unplumbed dimensions of terror and cosmic horror are tenuously thin.
> 
> The prologue is a little lacking in substance, but I wanted to put it out there so I wouldn't flake on this project. Nothing horroresque really happens in the prologue, but I promise we'll get weird by the end of Chapter 1, and weirder still beyond that.

“So, what made y’ come ahl the way out here?”

I took some time to consider my answer while Sheriff Ulridge pulled his old Chevy Scottsdale off the main road and onto a gravel path. He took his eyes off the road for a comfortable moment to gauge my expression.

“Just. . .” I started, still thinking. “City policing was a bit, uh, _dangerous_.”

He chuckled, his eyes returning to the road. “Well, son, I hate to break it to ya, but all policin’s _dangerous_.”

“I _know_ that,” I said. To my distaste, I sounded like a petulant child. “But with that uptick in gang violence, and the baby. . . The missus wanted to raise our child somewhere more rural anyhow.”

Sheriff Ulridge seemed to consider this for a moment. “Cain’t fault you fer that, I s’pose. Man’s gotta right to raise his kid.” He took a hand off the wheel and smoothed the hairs of his grey, quite pronounced, mustache. Stubble was growing in on his cheeks and under his jaw, and he scratched at it uncomfortably. “An’ it ain’t like you _quit,_ you’s just found work in a quieter town. No shame in it. ‘Specially after whatcha been through.”

I took the time to adjust my new uniform hat. I know staties wear campaign hats, but this Sheriff’s Office mandated an honest-to-God cowboy hat. _Mandated_. As in, mandatory. Not optional. The boots I can handle—a lot of Texans wear boots. I’m just surprised they didn’t mandate chaps, too. The Sheriff himself had a fancy Stetson, and I think the band was autographed by some crusty old country balladeer.

Despite the dress code and, I guess what one might describe as ‘quaint’ features of the Department, I don’t think this will be too terrible a county to serve. Ulridge and the other Deputies I’ve met seem nice enough. . . but if it’s anything like the city, then it’s only a matter of time before they start hazing me.

Ulridge decided that he would help me “gain the lay of the land” himself. So, I was to be his partner for a few weeks.

“Not much happens in Roscoe County,” Ulridge began, chewing on the inside of his lip as he paused, “but ya gotta be ready when it _does_ happen.”

“What do y’all mostly get out here? Cattle theft?”

Ulridge snorted. “Cattle theft. Naw, they’d just shoot the rustler. Same with home invaders. Naw, out here, we mostly get courtroom duty, drunken and disorderlies, a disturbing amount of domestic violence, and a lot of welfare checks. There’s a lotta ol’ folks livin’ out here, ya see. We gotta check in on ‘em now’n’en to make sure they ain’t keeled over yet. Sherman can tell you all about that.”

“Y’all get a lot of meth-heads?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes they’s just plain ol’ regular crazy, ‘stead’a drug crazy.” He paused, and seemed somber.  “Just remember, back-up isn’t a few minutes away out here. Next Deputy could be fifty minutes away, or more. . .” He paused again. “Not a lot happens here, but when it happens, it _happens_. When it rain, it pours’n’all that.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, giving him a nod.

He smiled, and we drove in silence for another ten minutes, listening to the gravel get kicked up, hitting the inside of the wheel well with tinny pings.

“Remind me about this call,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I had a late night.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ulridge said, grinning. “Was it the babe?”

I nodded, massaging the bridge of my nose.

“Aw, the _joys_ of fatherhood! Let me tell you, it’ll all be worth it when—”

With my eyes still closed, my body violently jerked forward, the seatbelt digging into my shoulder as it locked, thankfully preventing me from shattering my forehead on the dash. I barely caught my hat as it flew off my head. Ulridge swore and honked the horn. “Git, damn ya!”

A rather confused-looking deer locked eyes with me a moment, a beautiful twelve-point buck clearly in his prime. Another honk sent him scampering over the dilapidated fence along the roadway and into the densely forested hills.

“That’s another sage piece of advice right there, ya cain’t let yer guard down when yer drivin’, less’n you wanna put a buck like that through your windshield, wreck your cruiser _an’_ your pretty face. Missus won’t like that a bit, I’ll tell ya _that,_ ” Ulridge said, shifting the truck back into first and letting out the clutch. We were underway again.

 

~~

 

“Go ahead, you take the lead on this one, Deputy Hawthorne,” Ulridge said, gesturing to the door.

Doubtless a test to see how I conduct myself, I thought. I stepped onto the porch of the farmhouse, listening to the rotting porch swing creak in the wind on rusty chains. I didn’t need to open the screen door—the mesh had fallen away and I could knock on bare wood, its pale blue paint peeling.

Three firm but polite knocks with my knuckles, and I called out: “Missus Castellano? Roscoe County Sheriff’s Office! We’re here to—”

I was interrupted by a muffled stream of quick, angry Spanish. A woman’s voice—Mrs. Castellano, I presumed.

I looked to Ulridge.

Ulridge looked to me.

I shrugged.

“You mean to tell me you cain’t speak Spanish?” he whispered.

“I took German!” I whispered back.

“Germ- Why?” He said, shaking his head.

As I opened my mouth to respond, I heard a click- _click_ on the other side of the doorway, and it wasn’t the lock. Ulridge and my eyes widened in unison, and the next few seconds played out painfully slow. I jerked back, falling off the steps leading to the door just before the wood shattered, splinters blowing out between Ulridge and I as the former knelt and reached for his revolver.

“Was that a shotgun?” I asked, pulling my Glock 22 from its holster and shifting my prone form so that I wouldn’t be exposed by the window. What a second day!

“Must be Mr. Castellano’s. Was an avid hunter, that’un,” Ulridge said, then began shouting authoritatively in Spanish. Mrs. Castellano spoke back, and Ulridge frowned.

“She definitely ain’t taking her prescription,” Ulridge said.

The call to the Castellano house was a welfare check called in by her son, who hadn’t heard from her in a week. Mrs. Castellano, Ulridge had told me, called practically every day.

“What’s yer call, Deputy?”

“Well, I’d talk her down, but. . .”

Ulridge smirked, shifting to a seated position, gun still drawn. “Settle in, Deputy, we could be here awhile.” He took a deep breath, and then began to speak. “Ahlright, Mrs. Castellano. . .” he said, shifting to Spanish a moment later.

 

~~ 

 

Although Ulridge had gotten her to put down the twelve gauge, she had another fit as we were loading her into Ulridge’s Scottsdale. It’s not something that non-cops and non-medical professionals often realize, but the elderly and ‘infirm’ can have _surprising_ strength during episodes where they feel cornered or endangered. It took both of us, two young and old, but easily fit peace officers, to just get her into the passenger’s seat, and then secured with the seatbelt. Well, Ulridge was a little, uh,  _rotund_ , but he could do the job, so. . .

Once I managed to get her calf and foot back inside the cab and Ulridge slammed the door shut, locking it, I had a moment to catch my breath.

"Never seen a dementia patient so violent," I said, wiping sweat from my forehead. It was a degree or two above freezing but between being shot at and wrestling this elderly Latina fifty feet to the truck had me sweating inside my coat.

"Affects everyone differently," Ulridge said, leaning his sizable rump against the body of the truck. "My father became obsessed with model trains when he got old."

"Seems more like schizophrenia or some other kind of delusional episode—"

"Well aren't  _you_ fancy," Ulridge cut in, still breathing a bit heavy. "She's old, she's batty. Once the Doc gives her whatever pills for whatever she's got, she'll be better." 

I opened my mouth to speak, perhaps about his outdated views on mental health education, when I was hit with a more pressing realization: Where was I going to sit on the drive back?

“Sheriff, where am I supposed to sit?”

Ulridge puffed and sucked in a breath, even while Mrs. Castellano kept screaming at us in Spanish and spitting at the window. “Guess.”

Flatly, I looked at the truck-bed, then at Ulridge. He smiled, his lips half-hidden by his bushy mustache.

And so the hazing begins.


	2. Roscoe National Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deputy Hawthorne sheds some light on his perception of social media while making a tough arrest, hints are made at Hawthorne's past, more Deputies and Dispatch are introduced, and a kid goes missing in the forest. Also, Buster is a good boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realized the geography of Roscoe County, which is fictional, fits more into East Texas, so I changed references that placed it in the Panhandle. Texas is a place of diverse geography, and while I have definitely experienced that first hand I haven't spent much time in the Panhandle and assumed it was more like central Texas.
> 
> Fun fact: The Panhandle is larger than the state of West Virginia but has a population density of 16 people per square mile. Most of that is bunched up in Amarillo, though.
> 
> I might also warn you that this chapter contains a pretty outdated racial slur, quoted by the Deputy in reference to another speaker. This chapter is

There’s a lot of things people don’t understand about Law Enforcement Officers. LEOs catch a lot of crap these days—well, when didn’t we? Like with a lot of mob-mentality, sensationalism-driven backlashes, you’ve got a small percentage of informed individuals making justified and reasoned complaints against flaws in the police force, police doctrine, specific officers, etcetera.

And _then_ you’ve got a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth ideologues who spray-paint “PIGS” on some random fucker’s Mercury Marquis because it _looks_ like a Crown Vic, then turn around and loot an electronic store because. . . police brutality? I’m sure those broken windows and stolen iPads really move us in the right direction. That’s the kind of civil disobedience MLK lived and died for, right?

Make no mistake, I believe LEOs should be held to a higher standard than average citizens, because of the power vested in us _by those citizens_. But I feel that the court of public opinion, the court of social media, forgets the most basic tenant of American law—that you are innocent until you are proven guilty. They also forget that you can’t ignore an individual’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness simply because that individual is loathsome.

All this to say, sometimes a cop will have to defend a ‘bad guy’ because the law doesn’t care what you _think_ . The law protects everyone, or at least, _should_ protect everyone, no matter if they’re LGBT, straight, Christian, Muslim, atheist, black, white, short, tall. . . or viciously racist. I, as a Deputy of the Sheriff of Roscoe County, cannot arrest someone simply because they are racist. Racist speech is still speech, and is protected under the First Amendment, and thus any punishment for such hateful speech cannot come from law enforcement or the courts. You can deny racists service at your restaurant or store, you can shun them socially, boycott their business, or, hell, even try to enlighten them. Unless they threaten you with bodily harm, or incite violence against you, I can’t do anything about their speech. You might be able to sue them for damages, libel, or slander, but that’s a potentially expensive endeavour, and you might run the risk of losing the case if the court is unsympathetic.

You _cannot_ , however, decide to deck that racist, as much as he has offended you, or as much as he “had it coming.” The law is the law, and I’m a cop. I don’t have a choice.

I didn’t have time to explain this to the teenage Emilio Jones, a half-Latino, half-white “mulatto” (as the geriatric Richard Johnson had both offensively and incorrectly labeled him), as I forced him up against the wall, pinning his right arm into a lock behind his back. He kicked at my shins, swearing, while I shouted, “Stop! _Stop_ kicking!” but the kid didn’t listen. I felt for him, I really did. He had a darker complexion and took heavily after his father, a Mexican-borne farmer and volunteer fireman named Esteban. Good man—he came out at 3 AM to help me search for some missing kids who got turned around in the sticks. Old Mr. Johnson lay on the floor, out stone cold. As much as a curmudgeonly old bastard as he was, and he _was_ a bastard, a punch to the temple could _kill_ a man of his age, and Emilio had just committed assault in plain view of a peace officer, i.e. _me_.

Not only that, but he had swung at me. He didn’t actually hit me, and it happened so fast I doubted the bystanders saw it. I was already in fight-or-flight mode and my defensive tactics training was drilled into me pretty good. As he threw a wild haymaker, I reacted on pure instinct. I seized his wrist, got behind him, locked his arm, and pushed him against the dingy Dairy Queen’s pastel-painted wall, in less than a second. His face left sweaty smudges on a picture frame holding then-and-now pictures of the rustic little establishment. People were recording me now. Keyword, _now_ . They didn’t record Johnson’s racist rant, they didn’t record Emilio laying him out, they didn’t record Emilio swinging at me. They just recorded a twenty-seven-year-old white cop slamming some Latino teen against a wall. God forbid anyone ask for context. And, _of course_ , the County’s too damn poor for body-cams. . .

_Say hello to national television,_ I thought.

As Emilio shouted, “Fuck you! He had it comin’!” I saw Deputy Alvarez’s cruiser pull up next to mine. I wonder if our more mindless detractors would ignore his presence, or call him an Uncle Tom.

“Emilio, come _on,_ ” Alvarez said, the door chiming his arrival. He took a look at Mr. Johnson, and reached for his shoulder, activating his radio. “Dispatch, Car 7, EMS at the DQ on Main. Elderly injured.”

“Let me _go_ , man!” Emilio grunted, trying to dislodge himself from between me and the wall. I didn’t know if he was going to keep swinging, so I kept him where he wasn’t dangerous to me. . . or himself, for that matter.

“Help me get him down,” I said.

“Fuck you!” Emilio shouted.

Frowning, Alvarez grabbed Emilio’s flailing free arm, and we pulled him back, him wrenching against us with every move.

“Car 7, Dispatch copies. EMS to the Dairy Queen on Main Street,” said the voice in my ear. The sweet tones of old Ruth, who had been working at the dispatch center in Roscoe County for twenty-some years. I felt my adrenaline pumping, but it calmed at the sound of her voice.

Alvarez swept his leg, and has Emilio toppled over we held him so that he didn’t slam into tile. We lowered him the last foot or so, and I planted my knee in Emilio’s back, just like I was trained. Though he struggled, my leverage and position were superior. “Cuffs, cuffs,” I said.

“Hands behind your back, Emilio,” Alvarez said, his voice authoritative but much more sympathetic than mine. He didn’t get swung at—his adrenaline wasn’t pumping. At Alvarez’s command, Emilio calmed, and Alvarez slapped our patented friendship bracelets on him.

“Come on, let’s get you up,” Alvarez said, and I, taking my knee off of his back, took an arm while Alvarez took the other, and we lifted the boy to his feet. “I’ll take him,” Alvarez said. “I want to talk to him.”

I nodded. “No problem,” I said.

Next issue: Mr. Johnson.

_Please,_ for the boy’s sake, _do not be dead_ , you racist old shit.

I knelt next to him and, to my immense relief, I could hear labored breathing, and his pulse was fluttery, but strong enough to the touch. I stood up, and the patrons of the Dairy Queen were staring at me. They had been staring at me. The valley girl behind the counter was filming me with her iPhone. So was the local high-school linebacker. His name was J-something, I thought.

“Keep your distance,” I announced. “He’s breathing, but it’s best if nobody interacts with Mr. Johnson until the Paramedics arrive.” The valley girl stopped filming. The juicy shots were behind us. I could see her tapping her phone with fury in every keystroke.

Not “Hello, national television!”; “Hello, Twitter!”

The door chime rang and Alvarez re-entered.

“Hell of a way to start the night,” Alvarez said quietly, leaning into me, his thumbs hooked into his duty belt.

Alvarez and I had Friday night-shifts together. I had been training with Ulridge on the day-shift, but he felt it was time I change to the spot I was hired for. He gave me two days to adjust my sleep schedule, and then gave me my new assignment. From eight P.M. to eight A.M., every Sunday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, Roscoe County is under my watchful, sleepy eyes. The only upside to this schedule was that the baby would always have one of us home.

Most departments with twelve-hour shifts have three twelve-hour shifts, and a four-hour mini-shift to bring you up to forty hours per week. Roscoe County barely had enough Deputies to have two officers on every shift with four twelve-hour shifts, and prior to my hiring many night-shifts went with only a single Deputy on duty. Any backup would have to be dragged out of bed.

This is why Alvarez and Simmons, and to a lesser extent, Lochlan, were happy to see me arrive. With my hiring, Simmons got to drop his fourth shift, and Lochlan and Alvarez had to draw lots to see who would get to drop their fourth shift.

The paramedics finally arrived, asked me a few perfunctory questions, then put Mr. Johnson on a gurney and wheeled him out. Alvarez held the door for them and I went to my patrol car, to follow the ambulance to the station. I’d need to take Mr. Johnson’s statement. I could see Alvarez get into his cruiser, turning in his seat to say something to Emilio. Obviously, I couldn’t hear them, but I saw Emilio hang his head. _Poor kid,_ I thought. _I hope he can come back from this._ Alvarez drove away, to book Emilio. He’d have to call Esteban. If you ask me, the court can forgo punishing Emilio—His father Esteban is a gentle man, but he’ll have punishment _well_ taken care of. I doubt I’ll ever see Emilio in cuffs again.

I starting thinking of the incident and use-of-force reports I’d have to fill out, and briefly wondered how many death threats I would accrue on social media by end-of-shift. Oh well. No-one’s crazy enough to drive out to Roscoe County to gun me down. This is bumfuck-nowhere.

As I started my patrol car, I grabbed the radio on my shoulder. “Dispatch, Car 8, code four. Proceeding to hospital with victim to take statement.”

“Oh, dear,” I heard Ruth say. Now that we were code four—danger has passed, situation resolved—she became much more informal. “I’ve never been a fan of that Dick Johnson but it just pains my heart to see Emilio in trouble like this. Violence begets violence, and don’t you forget it, Deputy! Dispatch will show you en-route to hospital. Dispatch out. I hope the rest of your night is better, Charlie.”

“Thanks, Ruth. Car 8, out.” I put the cruiser into reverse and pulled out of the Dairy Queen parking lot onto the two-lane Main Street. Even though it was only ten P.M., the traffic light suspended at one of the town’s only lighted intersections blinked yellow for thru-traffic. I could see the ambulance heading south out of town towards the Roscoe County Medical Center, which famously doubled as one of the County’s premier veterinary care centers for livestock. Truth be told, they probably saw more dairy cows than human patients. If Mr. Johnson’s injuries were serious enough, they might have to transport him to Houston for serious care. I started after the ambulance.

The drive to RCMC was at least half an hour, one-way. The view could be considered ‘scenic’ if you hadn’t made the trip far too often. There were plenty of huge cottonwoods, though their trunks tended to be slightly spiralled in these parts, their branches curling in ways I didn’t usually see in trees. Still, I wasn’t a tree scientist, and I didn’t even notice the former phenomena until I spent a stake-out of a farmhouse staring at the cottonwoods out of boredom. It was subtle, but you started to notice the slight diagonal angle of the bark as it went up if you looked long enough. . . We never did arrest the farmhouse owner. If he was growing weed, he was growing it somewhere else.

And don’t get me started on the way they hung over the road. They almost turned the southern route out of town into a tunnel, the way they overhung the road like grasping fingers, their leaves creating a loose canopy. During the day, it looked pretty beautiful, with the erratic but natural patterns the sunlight made on the asphalt as it filtered through the leaves. At night, in the tenuous light of the cruiser’s shitty halogens, and especially in winter, when the branches were bare and rattling in the biting plains wind. . .

Your mind will really wander when you’ve got nothing to do. Most of my two-week “probationary period,” if you could call it that, was spent idling my time away, learning the roads, the land. I had periods of downtime when I worked a beat in the city, too, but not like this. It was more like working in a fast food place again, with a lunch and dinner rush and periods of relative inactivity. God, I hated summer jobs. . .

But, hey, they put me through the Academy. Thanks for nothing, Dad.

“All Cars, Dispatch,” a younger voice cut in. Jenny, the embodiment of sarcasm and sass. “J-Star in the house!”

I snorted, and would have rolled my eyes if I wasn’t driving.

“Breaker, Jen, please be professional on the clock, Car One out,” Ulridge cut in. He was supposed to be off-duty, but the Sheriff always had his ears on.

“Sorry, boss. All Cars, be ready to copy. . .” I quickly pulled over and pulled out my small reporter-style notebook and pen. “All Cars, be on the lookout for a white male, late forties to early fifties, drab green coat, khaki cargo pants, and, I quote here, ‘scruffy hair.’ Suspect wanted in connection with an armed robbery in Polk County and theft of a red 2004 Toyota Corolla, said to have sustained gunfire and possibly a broken window. License plate Zebra, King, Sam, One One Three Nine.  Suspect is, in case you weren’t listening to the _armed robbery_ part, _armed_ and probably _dangerous_. Bonus points if he’s on meth. I think he’s on meth. Cars, copy?”

“Car 7, copy,” I heard Alvarez say.

“Car 8, copy,” I said.

“Great! Dispatch, out.”

Jenny was Ruth’s granddaughter, had dyed her hair with streaks of purple, and wore fake combat boots to the call center, but she had a big heart, or so Ruth told me. As far as I knew, Jenny took the job so that she wouldn’t have to go to military school on her mom’s behest. Carl said he was glad Jenny was living with them. Small-town folk love to tell you their life stories, but I didn’t mind. I thought of myself as people-person, after all.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, at least, until, about ten minutes away from RCMC, headlights appeared in my rear view. They were approaching fast, since I was taking my time getting to the hospital, knowing it would take the staff time to process Mr. Johnson.

They passed me in a hurry, and at first all I saw was that the car was red. I began to accelerate, matching their speed to check if they were breaking the speed limit. They were right on, seventy-five or seventy-six. I started to slow down when I saw the manufacturer’s logo and the name badge. Toyota badging, and “COROLLA” in chrome lettering. My heart skipped a beat. I read the license plate.

FNK 2294.

Glancing at the computer in my cruiser, I could see the BOLO. I had written it down earlier to make it stick in my memory better, but I wanted to confirm. The plate I was looking for was ZKS 1139.

Still, the guy could have switched plates. . .

I didn’t see any bullet holes or a broken window, but Jenny said damage to the car was _possible_ , not _certain._

I guess I’ll find out when I flip on the emergency lights. Dude’ll probably bolt if I flash the cherries’n’berries at him.

I reached towards my radio, ready to call myself in for a traffic stop, but my hand froze. What if it is him? _Armed_ _and dangerous_ , Jenny had reiterated. My only back-up was easily forty minutes in the opposite direction, and going farther with every minute. Alone. I’m alone out here. Jenny didn’t say what kind of gun the guy had. A saturday night special? Some .38 peashooter? My vest can handle that. What if he’s packing serious heat? Anything rifle-sized and I’ll be shredded. I’ll die. I’m going to bleed out on the asphalt, and I’m—

_Fuck this, fuck you!_ I thought, biting my tongue to refocus myself. Traffic stops are one of the deadliest kinds of calls, true. This won’t be like last time. Traffic stops happen all the time. You’ve got to do your job, for fuck’s sake!

Quickly, I flipped the switched, and let out a blip from the siren. The driver, who I couldn’t see due to the darkness of the night and the glare in the window, began to pull onto the shoulder, without signalling.

We coasted to a gentle stop. I had stopped far enough back that the dashcam would have a complete view of the Toyota as I approached it.

As I put the cruiser into park, my heartbeat quickened. I could feel my palms growing numb, my vision growing a bit fuzzy. I took several deep, measured breaths, just like I was taught. My heart rate calmed just a bit. Despite this, my hand gripped the handle of my service pistol until my knuckles were white. I released the latch on my seatbelt, the mechanical sound of the retracting mechanism the only thing breaking the silence other than my breathing.

I opened my door and stepped out.

Shit, I forgot to run the plates.

_Shit,_ I forgot to call this in!

I started to reach towards my mouthpiece, but I kept my hand by my side. If it is the guy, and he sees, and he thinks I’m radioing for back-up, he’ll definitely light me up.

I let my door mostly close, keeping it slightly ajar in case the Toyota bolted. I took measured, mechanical steps diagonally, so I could approach the car from the passenger side window, just like I was trained. I placed my hand quickly but firmly on the trunk as I passed it, just like I was trained. If he shoots me and runs, Homicide can dust for my prints on the back of the car to prove it was this car I pulled over.

I pulled out my heavy-duty flashlight, but saw the interior lights of the car blink on just before I could turn it on. I knocked on the passenger side window, leaning down to look inside—

_Thank. God._ Or Jehovah. Or Yahweh. Or Allah. Or Vishnu. Or Odin—I don’t give a shit!

It was a twenty-something girl. She looked mildly concerned, but not frightened. I took a cursory glance in the passenger and back seats, and saw that the car was practically bare and well-lit. Certainly no hiders.

“Good evening, officer,” the girl said, her voice squeaking.

In that moment, I realized how worrisome I must have looked, face beading with sweat, my expression contorted into what Emily called my “concentration constipation” face. When focused, I looked stern, to put it charitably.

“License and registration, please.” My voice didn’t even sound like my own, at least to me. It’s as if I was watching my body be controlled by three badly-trained puppeteers.

The girl reached across to the glove box and I flinched, my hand flying to my gun. When I jumped, she jumped and let out a small yelp.

“I-I-I,” she stuttered, “I’m just going for my registration!”

“Sorry, ma’am,” I said, realizing how ridiculous my behavior was. “I’m with the County Sheriff’s Office. The reason I pulled you over is because a vehicle matching this description was involved in an armed robbery. The suspect driving said vehicle was said to be armed and very dangerous.”

“Oh,” the girl said, opening the glove box as I relaxed my posture and let my right hand grip my duty belt instead. My left hand took off my cowboy hat and I wiped my sweat on my forearm—my sleeve came away drenched. “Well, I can assure you, officer,” she said, retrieving her wallet from her purse and offering me the documents, “that I am _not_ armed and _not_ dangerous. My boyfriend says I couldn’t win a fight with a wet paper bag!” She laughed, nervously. Really, I was sorry. She was only so freaked out because _I_ was. And when the man with a gun is unnerved, well, a reasonable person might be worried, too.

I barely even glanced at her papers, but noticed the date on her registration.

“Your expiration’s coming up on your registration, ma’am. You can renew it online—just make sure the website has a dot-gov address.”

“Oh, of course. Thank you, officer,” she said, as I handed her papers back to her.

“It’s ‘Deputy,’ actually,” I said, absently, looking up at the night sky. You could barely see the stars through the canopy over the road.

She said something, but I didn’t hear it. Instead, I listened to the pound of my pulse get slower and slower.

“Deputy?”

I snapped back to reality.

“Sorry, ma’am?”

“Are you okay?”

I paused, then nodded, and tipped my hat to her. “Just fine. Long shift ahead of me. You have a good night now, ma’am.”

She seemed unconvinced. “Good night, Deputy. I hope you get your man!” she said, with a polite smile, as she rolled up her window and I went back to my patrol car. As I got inside, she pulled away and accelerated gently. I tossed my hat into the passenger seat and buried my face in my hands. _Fuck me. . ._ First traffic stop since—

“All Cars, Dispatch, please respond.” Jenny sounded serious.

I grabbed my radio. “Car 8, 10-8.”

Jenny glossed over the fact that I never officially attached myself to a call, and simply said, “Car 8, are you still en-route to RCMC?”

“Correct,” I said, concerned.

“Report approximate location.”

“About five miles past the old chapel, over.”

“Dispatch, Car 7, please respond.”

“Car 7, Dispatch,” Alvarez said. “What’s going on?”

“I have a father on hold that just called in a 207 in the Roscoe State Park. I’m attaching you both and calling up Simmons, Barker, and Castaigne. I’m also contacting Texas Parks and Wildlife.”

“How long ago was the abduction?” I asked.

“Approximately an hour. Husband had to drive to get within cell reception.”

“Age and description of child?” Alvarez asked.

“Eight. Blond. Approximately four feet tall, wearing blue checkered shirt, black cargo pants, and yellow North Face jacket. You—you know, the puffy ones?” Jenny made a terrified half-giggle.

“Jenny,” Alvarez said.

“Y-yeah?”

“It’s okay to call Ruth back. This is heavy stuff. It’s good that you got the ball rolling. You did good.”

The radio was silent for a moment.

“Thanks, Al.”

After a moment, Alvarez came over the radio again. “I’m still booking the Jones kid, but I’ll pound asphalt as soon as I can. Car 7 out.”

“Car 8 switching to Code Three,” I said, flipping on the lights and sirens. I slammed on the accelerator and watched the speedometer creep higher and higher. Slowing only to round a bend, I saw the girl’s red Toyota pull onto the shoulder to let me pass. Poor girl probably thought I was coming back for her or something. I flew past her at one-hundred, one-ten, easy. We weren’t supposed to go much faster than ten over the posted limit, even when running the siren and emergency lights. But a child’s abductions? Every goddamn second counts. DPD had a whole seminar about what to do about _urban_ abductions, but I felt like that fact transferred over.

I slowed, knowing I would be approaching the tiny, nondescript brown sign reading “ROSCOE STATE PARK” with an arrow pointing to a dirt trail. I pulled onto the trail, moving the cruiser as fast as I dared down the winding path. Even with my hi-beams on, visibility was bad, the road was uneven, and I ran the risk of “putting a buck through the windscreen” at any moment. All the while, I heard Jenny corresponding over the main frequency with other deputies as they were roused. Ulridge must have actually fallen asleep, because I didn’t hear him pipe up for quite a bit. Ruth took over control of the situation just as I was reaching the first real split in the road. A noticeboard, with sign-up sheets and map of the campsites and trails was posted in the fork. I put the cruiser in park and muted the siren as I stepped out. I grabbed a copy of the map from the box, and ran back to my car.

“Breaker, Dispatch, Car 8! Which campsite is the family at?”

Castaigne’s cajun drawl ceased immediately when I said the b-word, and Ruth’s reply was almost immediate. “Campsite C2! That’s left!”

“—left,” I said aloud in unison with her, as I threw the shifter into drive and screeched down the left path, my tires kicking up jets of dirt behind me.

“A Game Warden is waiting for you there,” Ruth added, and returned to filling Castaigne in on what the deal was.

Castaigne was sort of our K9 unit. I say “sort of” because it wasn’t official, but Buster, his aging bloodhound originally trained as a hunting dog, could serve as a search-and-rescue dog in dire circumstances, which, obviously, we were in.

“Gimme ‘bout ten minutes’n’ahl git there,” Castaigne drawled. “Buster’ll be happy to help. Car 5, out.”

It took me a few minutes to reach the campsite, even at my frankly dangerously fast pace. As I approached, I could see the flashing lights of the Game Warden’s truck through the weird cottonwoods and southern oaks. Pulling in just behind his dusty F-250, I turned off my siren and opened the door, immediately grabbing my flashlight. The Game Warden was standing with two individuals that I took to be the parents. The wife was crying, her face buried in her hands, and the husband was rubbing her arms, as if that’d calm her down. He was looking at the Warden, and now me, with bleary red eyes.

“Charlie,” the Warden called, tipping his hat.

“Frank,” I said, nodding back.

“Sorry to see you so soon again,” Frank said, grimacing. As I approached, Frank let out a breath, creating a small cloud of vapor in the air.

“Please,” the wife said, before I could respond. “You _must_ find my son!”

“I’ll do everything I can, ma’am,” I said, watching the red, then blue of our emergency lights glinting off the streaks of tears on her face. Pulling out my notebook, I leaned over to Frank and whispered, “207?”

“Not sure. Could be,” he whispered. “Either way, we need to get boots on the ground. It’s cold.”

“Castaigne’s bringing Buster out,” I said, normally, and turning to the parents. “Buster is our sniffer dog. I need you to find something with your son’s scent on it—a blanket, his favorite toy.”

“Yeah, I can get that!” the husband said, sounding almost excited. It sounds weird, but I wasn’t suspicious of that. I could only imagine how powerless he must feel. If he had ran off after his son, we’d just end up having to search for him too. It must torture him, knowing that the _absolute best_ he can do to help his son is grab a stuffed bear, or some shit like that.

“Fill me in, Frank,” I said, notebook in hand, pen at the ready.

“Larry and Patricia Teach,” Frank said, pointing at the husband rooting around in the large, family tent, then at the wife, who had to sit down at the decrepit picnic table. “Son’s eight-year-old Harold Teach, answers to ‘Harry.’ He was wearing a blue checkered shirt, plaid pajama pants—” At this point, I looked up, “—red light-up Sketchers, and beige thermal undergarments; shirt and drawers.”

Quietly, I said, “Dispatch had him with black cargo pants and yellow North Face jacket.”

Frank just shook his head a little. “Changed their story. Guess they were flustered.” He nodded towards the picnic table, where a child’s yellow jacket lay. “They said he got up to go to the bathroom but didn’t wake either of them. Wife says she woke up when he called for her, screaming for help. Father didn’t hear anything. Father searched around a little, then drove to the road for service, but he got lost on the way. They say they know he was with them when they went to bed at 9 P.M., and he wasn’t there when the wife woke at 11. Husband didn’t get to make the call ‘till 12.” Seeing my look, he added, “All I know for sure is he ain’t here and it’s almost freezing.”

I pressed a button on my digital watch and the LCD screen lit up. 12:30PM. Lost or abducted, that’s not good. Hopefully, the kid is just lost. If so, he’s probably just sitting under a tree somewhere, waiting to be rescued. If some dirtbag actually has him, though.

“We should get started as soon as Castaigne gets here,” Frank said, pulling out a large map of Roscoe State Park. I don’t know why it wasn’t folded it with the larger national forests of the area, but there was a border to a much larger, much harder to search section of a national forest that backs right up to the State Park’s boundary, and it’s not marked or fenced. Across that line isn’t a state park, nor part of Roscoe County, so neither Frank nor I had jurisdiction there. Sure, we could chase the guy if we were hot on his heels, but in order to mount a proper search, and make sure it’s all clean, we’d have to bring the National Park Service, and maybe even the FBI into the fold. I’m not a Fed-hater, but it would take time we don’t have if Harry really was abducted.

Frank placed the map on the hood of my cruiser, placed his flashlight between his shoulder and neck, and marked the campsite we were at with a pencil. “If Harry was abducted at 11 P.M., the most the suspect could go with him is about, eh, five miles in an hour and a half? _If_ he’s quick. I’d say he’s more likely gotten about three to four miles, but let’s contain a five-mile radius and work inwards.”

“We don’t have the manpower to create a real cordon in a five-mile radius. That’s, like,” I said, trying to remember my high school math, but Frank cut in.

“About seventy-eight square miles, or fifty thousand acres.” Being Parks and Wildlife’s go-to search-and-rescue guy for this area, he must have it down pat. “Good thing is we only really half to search half the circle. This campsite is close to the entrance, and nobody’s left the park that way since about sundown. I have one of the rookies stopping anyone on their way out.”

“Could he have taken him overland, avoiding the trail out, to the highway, and gotten into a vehicle parked on the shoulder?” I asked.

Frank nodded, and kept his voice even lower than before. “If he has, then the kid’s gone and we can’t do nothin’. Best we can do is assume he’s either still in the park, or he’s heading to the National Forest.

“I’ll let Dispatch know to notify the National Park Service to be on guard,” I said.

Frank nodded to me as I stepped away, not looking away from the map and started muttering to himself. “So, if I were a creep, where would I take a kid. . .?”

~~

Castaigne, Barker, and Simmons arrived at about the same time. Alvarez arrived soon after, with Lochlan, to my surprise.

“I had Al pick me up on the way,” she said, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, her curly red hair in an unusually messy bun, even though her uniform was immaculate, as always.

Simmons looked especially exhausted. Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday were his nights on, and his one break had just gone up in smoke. Due to the odd lighting, it took me a while to notice that his five-o’clock-shadow was only on the right side of his face. This job loves to catch you with your pants down.

Castaigne and Barker immediately went to the tent, with Buster in tow. Buster could sense the tension and was already giving the ground cursory sniffs, his long ears drooping.

I heard Barker’s harsh voice even over Frank’s briefing to the others. “You got something of the kid’s?” he said, “A toy, blanket?”

“I can’t find his blanket,” Larry said, “but here’s Jasper!” Larry produced a gaudy, green stuffed stegosaurus with tremendously oversized eyes. Castaigne gingerly took it and offered it to Buster, who sniffed it for a good while before his handler said, “C’mon boy!”

And like that, Buster took off with a sharp bark that interrupted Frank’s briefing.

“. . .just remember what I said. When you call his name, make sure you wait a moment to listen for a response. Otherwise, stick to the procedure.”

Usually we gather more information before mounting a search, but when the missing person is particularly vulnerable, like a child or a senior, we try to mount a hasty search immediately, to increase their likelihood of survival, and then go back over the areas more thoroughly. Since the only evidence of foul play was one woman’s vague eyewitness report, we were treating this more like a lost child case. Frank made sure to keep abduction in mind when he formed a plan for us. We weren’t ruling out the possibility of an abduction, but. . . We’d do the best with what we have. Play the odds. Pray, if that’s your thing. Hope he makes it home safe. Sometimes, hope’s all we got.

~~

Frank split us up into partners. Simmons and Barker, Lochlan and Alvarez, and Castaigne, Buster and me. Frank would stay at the campsite to coordinate the whole affair. While he had the most first-hand tracking experience, his ability to oversee the operation and advise us properly made him the best candidate at the moment. Sheriff Ulridge was on his way down to take over, with some volunteers from the town to join the search.

Buster gave me hope. He would move at a quick but steady pace, sniffing the ground. Occasionally, he stopped and sniffed at the air, look around a bit, and went to sniff the dino again to reaffirm the scent he was looking for, then was back on the trail.

“That’s it, boy, that’s it,” Castaigne said.

I scanned the trees with my Maglite, keeping my head on a swivel while Castaigne worked with Buster. I could faintly hear my colleagues calling Harry’s name every now and then.

“Harry!” I shouted, and listened.

Naught but the wind whistling through the branches, the mourning doves, and the incessant chirping of the crickets.

~~

We made our way deeper and deeper into the Park.

“You sure he’s still on the right trail?” I asked.

Castaigne nodded. “Buster may be ol’ as sin, but he ain’t senile. Not yet. He’s got a strong scent he’s workin’, look at ‘im. Kid must be smelly.”

“This is a long way for a kid to wander. You thinking abduction?”

“This _is_ a trail. He goes down the trail to take a leak’n’gets all turned around, picks a direction, walks it. Keeps going ‘cause he ain’t got the brains to quit it,” Castaigne said. “I’ve seen it happen a few times.” After a moment, he looked at me as Buster paused to check the dino again. “Not sayin’ it ain’t, though.”

I had finished my probationary period in Dallas and worked there a year, but thankfully hadn’t to work many cases _involving_ children. Most of my on-the-job interaction with kids was answering the odd question on a lunch break.

But there’s always a first time, isn’t there?

Buster barked, causing both of us to jump. He then dashed off the trail, practically dragging Castaigne behind him. I hesitated to step off the trail, but went after him.

“Shit, well, we got _somethin’_ ,” Castaigne said.

“What ya got?” I asked.

“‘Arry’s wearing them light-up shoes, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Castaigne shined his light on a dirty, but distinctly red kid’s sneaker, with a stylized ‘S’ on the side. Buster was sniffing it intensely, and then sniffing at the dirt and twigs around it.

“Why get off the trail?” I asked.

“And why drop your shoe?” Castaigne added.

“He got spooked. Or dragged off.”

“HAIR-REE!” Castaigne nearly blew my eardrums out. If Harry was around, he _definitely_ heard that.

We waited.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three.

“ _Shit_ ,” Castaigne said.

Buster was still sniffing around for a continuation of the scent, but was now going in circles, wrapping his long leash around Castaigne and I. I stepped out of it, but Castaigne was looking around. It would be a cute moment, if not for the circumstances.

There wasn’t much moonlight, so our Maglites were all we had to go by. We had kept spreading out as we went on, and I couldn’t see the beams of our colleagues bouncing in the distance anymore. We all had maps and radios, and some of us had GPSs. Still, the County paid for supplemental land navigation training because SAR was included in the job description.

“Okay, so, if he’s lost,” I say. “I’m a kid. I don’t know where I am, I can’t find my parents, I’m trying to walk back to the campsite, but I haven’t found it yet and I’ve walked really far. I’m not wearing real hiking shoes, so I probably don’t hike much. My feet are hurting. Something scares me; I run off the trail. Maybe I step in something, maybe I trip over something, but I stop for some reason. My feet still hurt, so maybe I take a shoe off? Maybe it falls off when I fall?”

As I spoke, Castaigne and I were both scanning in all directions for any more clues. Buster was still sniffing around.

“I’m gonna radio in the find,” Castaigne said.

“Yeah,” I replied, as Buster whimpered and sat down, signalling his inability to pick up the trail again.

“That’s weird as hell,” Castaigne said, extending the antenna of his handset.

“What?”

“Buster can’t find a new path. Means he _should_ be right here.”

As Castaigne and I worked that out logically, we shot a glance at each other. Almost in unison, we looked up, casting our Maglites’ beams skyward.

It took a moment to process.

“The hell?”

A pair of blue plaid pajama pants were on a tree branch about thirty feet straight up. Not _draped over it_ , _on_ it. As if someone had started at the tip of the branch and put it through the top, pulling the pants up so that the end went through one of the pant-legs. The waistband was almost to the trunk, and that branch was about ten to twenty feet long.

“Harry?” I called.

No response. Castaigne and I began scanning each branch of that tree, circling it and viewing it from every possible direction. Unless he was hiding _inside_ it, Harry wasn’t in that tree. Losing a shoe was bad, but not uncommon. How did Harry get divested of his _pants_? And how did they get up there?

“I gotta call this in—”

“Let me,” Castaigne said, uncharacteristically grim. “You just. . . take a breather.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but froze when the crickets stopped chirping. I hadn’t realized it, but the mourning doves had fallen silent. Buster was staring off, still as a statue, towards something unseen.

Castaigne simply held a finger to his lips, and went for his sidearm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you just love cliffhangers?


	3. Yellow Sign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deputy Hawthorne wakes up in Roscoe County Medical Center, but the poor bastard's still back on patrol for the next night. There is no rest for the wicked, nor for the just that must catch them. Still, the other Deputies want him to take it easy, patrolling his own neighborhood and waiting out the shift. . .

When my eyes first fluttered open, the fluorescent lights burned my retinas something fierce, and with every heartbeat the back of my head throbbed in a dull, but intense pain. Timed with these throbs was a fuzziness at the edges of my vision. 

“Charlie!”

Blinking my eyes into focus, I looked aside to see Emily.

“Heyyy, Em. . .” I said, sounding a bit drunk.

She smiled, nervously turning her ring as she looked at me. “Gosh, you’re loopy.”

“Loopy?”

“Yeah, they gave you something for the pain.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“The  _ doctors,  _ jackass,” came a rough voice from over my shoulder. Emily’s face fell, and I turned, slowly and with great effort, to see Mr. Johnson on the other side, laid up in a hospital bed.

Looking down,  _ I’m _ laid up in a hospital bed.

Okay, but why?

I looked to Emily for answers, but my eyes fell onto half-a-dozen or so well-wishers’ cards on my bedside-stand thing. Couldn’t really call it a table in my opinion—too many moving parts.

“Where’s the little one?” I asked.

“I hired a sitter. Oh, these are for you,” Emily said, then picked up the largest one and handed it to me. It was in the shape of a police badge. I tried to open it from the side, like most cards, for slightly too long before Emily reached over and pulled at the bottom—it flipped over like a reporter-style notebook.

“ _ Donut  _ have too much fun with your time off!” the card read, the ‘o’s being replaced with tiny donuts. It was signed by the other Deputies, save Barker, as well as the Dispatch staff. While most had scribbled their signatures like they were signing a receipt, Castaigne’s signature looked like master calligraphy, in contrast with the final signature, on the very bottom of the inside badge. In microscopic, arrow-straight print, simply read “Frank.”

“Aw,” I said, as my wife took my hand. She then handed me my other cards—I’ll spare you the details, but they were from my parents, her parents, my old Sarge in Dallas. . .

As I finished reading them, I took a deep breath and looked at my wife, squeezing her hand.

“Yes?” She asked, sensing an imminent question.

“What happened to me?”

~~

Applause rang off the station walls as I entered. I’d estimate half of it was sincere. I took a sarcastic bow, smiling and waving for the imaginary cameras and crowd.

“First day on his own and he gets hospitalized!” Simmons said.

“Same-day release,” I said. “And I had  _ back-up at the time. _ ”

Castaigne raised his hands in surrender. “‘Said I was sorry in the bus, man. It was  _ you _ ’at tripped o’er yer own damn feet.”

I laughed, but uncomfortably. I sat down at my desk in the officer, beginning the process of beginning the work day. I had already clocked in—time to check outstanding assignments, warrants, notes from the previous shift. I was pretending to flip through a manila folder on my desk, but I was really thinking about the forest, about how I couldn’t remember any of it. Well, bits of it.

Castaigne said a pack of coyotes had gotten real nasty and were chasing the kid—chased him straight up the big tree with the pants. He had hid in a hole left after a branch fell off, but left his pants so a search team could find them, Castaigne said. Then the coyotes came back when we started knockin’ around the area. We got into a half shoot-out, half foot-chase with the coyotes, only we were the ones being chased. Castaigne said I was carrying the kid, and he was carrying Buster, since the old boy was too old to run that far. I tripped over a tree root, and twisted as I fell so I didn’t fall on the kid, only I hit my head on another thick root. I didn’t get knocked out right away, and Castaigne and I had to fire at the coyotes. We about emptied our magazines when we struck a few and scared them off.

I managed to carry the kid about half-way back to the campsite before I had to stop and take a breather. . . which turned into a miniature coma. Castaigne said he carried me back while the kid got to “walk” Buster. 

Far as I knew, the kid and his parents hightailed it out of Roscoe County—they just wanted to get home and put the whole terrifying experience behind them. I don’t really blame them.

I was just  _ really _ sure the kid wasn’t in that tree. 

Still, Castaigne  _ had  _ shown me a picture with the smiling, dirty kid with his crying parents, all hugging in a tight circle, bathed in the cherries and berries and amber lamps of emergency vehicles. So I knew we at least  _ found  _ him and got him back. Castaigne had apparently gotten it off his phone and onto a polaroid-style print since his last end-of-shift, and I didn’t know when the guy slept. He had a short shift, but had one every day, from five P.M. to ten P.M., to be on-call for the shift change.

I decided to file it away as a problem I could mull over late at night—early in the day, when I really slept, whatever.

“Hey, Simmons,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t I have any warrant notices or assignments?” I said, holding up the pretty bare folder. It only had a few notes about arrests made earlier in the day, and old assignment papers that had already been completed.

Simmons shrugged, not bothering to look up from his newspaper. “Guess the Sheriff wants you to take it easy.”

Simmons looked like a stereotypical suburban dad. You know the type; thirty-fiveish, white, clean-shaven, crew cut. His uniform was always impeccable and freshly ironed. I had seen him off-duty, once, and he had jorts, socks-and-sandals, baseball cap, and a faded t-shirt. He was drinking with another guy his age at the town’s seedier bar at the time. I didn’t say hi—I was there to pick up one of the drunks who had a warrant.

“Doc said I was fit for duty,” I said, unsure of if I could push this. Hell, if I  _ should _ .

“Doc knows we didn’t have anyone to cover your shift,” Simmons said, matter-of-factly. He must’ve known that wouldn’t satisfy me, because he said, “Why don’t you go patrol the Mill-Hills? They haven’t had a cruiser park there in a bit. Crackheads might try to steal a TV.”

“I live in the Miller Hills neighborhood,” I said.

Simmons clicked his tongue, still refusing to look up from his newspaper. “Wouldja lookit that?” he said, flatly. “Must be providence. Go get ‘em, Deputy.”

I sighed. Well, it couldn’t hurt to be close to Emily and Johnny.

~~

I parked my cruiser in front of my house. I didn’t want to go inside and risk waking the baby, or disturbing Emily’s sleep, so I just leaned the seat back a little and tried my best to stretch my legs. It was a cold night, and pretty damp. It must have rained while I was asleep, and there were still unsightly little puddles in the lawns and potholes. Everything was covered in tiny droplets of water.

My neighborhood was about as nice as you could get in a place like Roscoe County. It was roughly north of what used to be the “downtown” of Milton, the county seat. It was a newer, prefab kind of neighborhood, originally built on the assumption that Milton and Roscoe County were going to grow when a new patch of oil was found nearby. Of course, the realtors jumped the gun and it eventually came out that due to some legal jiu-jitsu, the land containing the oil had been given over to Roscoe State Park and Texas Parks and Wildlife. TPW wasn’t about to let anyone drill on or near the State Park, and the houses that were finished remained unsold for some time, until the realtors decided to cut their losses and sell the houses and land at a great discount. I bet the bastards still came out in the black, even if it was only a few dollars of profit. 

Unlike the rest of Milton residents, the people who had bought the houses by-and-large seemed to recognize the chance they had been given, and had taken great care of the houses. After all, they were used to repairing and maintaining shambling shotgun houses from the thirties—keeping a relatively new house from going to shit was easy. There were exceptions, of course, like the house at the end of the street that had never gotten sold, and stood still and empty, likely hosting a squatter or two. There was also at least one drug dealer nearby, and I will definitely bust their ass as soon as I can. Weed was one thing, but I don’t want Johnny growing up on the same block as some junkie slinging crystal.

Worse was the fact that I could see his house from where I sat. Tall, the only three-story in the neighborhood, and with several porthole windows that were supposedly intended to give off the impression of windmill windows. . . whatever that meant. His curtains were  _ always _ drawn, and they were blackouts.

I had blackout curtains too, but only in the living room and bedroom, and only drew them closed when I was sleeping in either room. I didn’t keep them perpetually drawn.

All of our houses had basements, because while we were pretty much out of Tornado Alley, the realtors knew that Roscoe could get some really weird weather patterns and hoped to use that as a bullet point to sell the houses.

For whatever reason, the dealer, Phil, didn’t cover up his basement windows. From time to time I’d peek through them with my monocular, just on the off-chance I might see something illegal.

See, you can’t search or raid someone’s property or car without a warrant, but there are obvious exceptions, primarily exigent circumstances and the plain-view rule.

Under “exigent circumstances,” such as hearing a woman screaming bloody murder and begging for help, I can bust down a door to protect and serve without a judge’s say-so.

With the plain-view rule, if I can  _ see _ four bricks of weed just, like,  _ laying _ in your back seat, then I can arrest you for it. Best part is, that’s happened before.

So, all this to say, I was hoping I could catch a glimpse of some untoward activity through Phil’s basement window as a pretext to get him out of my neighborhood.

I felt a little bad for breathing down his neck like this, but he was a  _ known _ dealer with a rap sheet longer than my wife’s grocery list dealing some  _ serious _ shit. Ulridge had warned me about him, and given me a heads-up about what he hawks. Not just weed, LSD, or MDMA. Regardless of your views on those ‘softer,’ “party” drugs, and believe me, I’m not one hundred-percent in-line with my state’s views on recreational drug use, they are illegal in the State of Texas. Still, even if they were, he deals in the harder stuff. Not just cocaine, meth, or heroin. Some more niche stuff, like ketamine, stolen prescriptions, some jacked-up form of peyote mixed with Monster and God knows what else, the list goes on. I’d wager half the drug-related deaths in the County, if not the region, can be traced back to this dirtbag.

So I felt a little bad, only a little, as I raised my monocular and put my eye to the eyepiece. Focusing it, I peered into Phil’s basement. Dark, unable to see much. No luck tonight.

I lowered it, and let my gaze fall to the terminal in my cruiser. No BOLOs or APBs. No real calls tonight. I crossed my arms and leaned back again.

As I did, I flicked my eyes up to the rear-view mirror.

My heart nearly leapt out of my chest.

There was a figure standing in front of the house at the end of the road. He or she was wearing baggy clothing, and at this distance and in this lighting I couldn’t even tell if they were facing toward or away from me. They were essentially just a silhouette, and, after a moment, I wasn’t even sure if anyone was  _ there _ or I was just experiencing a spot of pareidolia. 

I clicked my seatbelt off. If there  _ was  _ someone there, they likely couldn’t see that I was in my patrol cruiser. The windows were dark, there was still very little moonlight, and I was leaned back.

Of course, I hadn’t been just a minute ago. . .

I mean, who could that be? A jackass teenager playing a prank? It’s not Halloween. Some kind of gangbanger trying to make a statement about my spying on Phil? Shit, did Phil hire a hitman? No, that’s stupid. I’ve never given him reason to think I’m hounding him. Another Deputy pulling a prank on me?

_ Better not be _ , I thought, reaching above the sun visors and pulling the Remington 870 from its rack. I half-racked it and made sure a shell was chambered. Looking back at the mirror—

Gone. I pulled the handle on the door and planted a boot on the blacktop, sticking my head out to look for the figure. I could see the figure a little more clearly now, standing on the porch of the abandoned house, facing away from me.

“. . .the hell?” I muttered, stepping out of the patrol car and quietly closing the door. The door opened and the figure went inside.

Now I’m pretty sure that ain’t kosher.

I reached for my radio. “Dispatch, anyone move into the squatter’s house in the Mill-Hills?”

“Nope,” came a gravelly old voice.

“Hey, Carl.”

“Hey, Charlie.”

“You sure on that vacancy?”

“Yep.”

“Check for me.”

“Mmkay.”

“. . .”

“Yep. Nobody bought that place. Like I said.”

“Thanks anyway, Carl.”

“No problem, Charlie.”

“Show me on a B and E in the Mill-Hills,” I said.

“You want me to send Simmons, Charlie?”

“Nah, Carl, I think I got this.”

“10-4, Car 8. Lemme know how that goes.”

I clicked off the safety of the shotgun and reached down to flick on the underbarrel flashlight. This 870 didn’t come from the store with it on—Ulridge told me a local kid made some flashlight mounts for a shop class project. I kept the light pointed at the ground as I walked down the street. 

Stepping up onto the porch, I looked through the curtained windows. I couldn’t see inside. Looking down, I could see the figure’s wet bootprints on the concrete, with flecks of mud trailing into the house. Pointing the shotgun inside, I could see the mud staining the beige carpet. From the door, I could see a small entryway, plus a hall leading to what would be the living room, with a door to the left and stairs leading up to the right. The mud-trail went up the stairs.

I pointed the flashlight up the staircase and didn’t see the figure. I listened for footsteps above me, but only heard the steady  _ drip. . . drip. . . drip. . .  _ of the water from the roof into a brackish puddle beside the porch. I reached up my left hand and took off my hat, kneeling slightly so I could place it by the door. I didn’t want that damn thing getting in my way.

I was wearing duty gloves, but I could feel sweat soaking into the fingers despite the temperature. My pulse started to race and I started to get that tunnel vision.

Shit, man. It’s probably just some kid playing dress-up. Or Sherman coming to bust my ass. Calm down.

I entered the house. There’s no way my heavy boots wouldn’t make a racket coming up the stairs. As soon as I hit the first step, still keeping my shotgun trained on the top of the stairs, I called out “Sheriff’s Office!” and charged up the stairs.

“Come out with your hands up!” I shouted, my head darting around as I reached the top. I didn’t see anyone, sweeping the room with the flashlight. This room was a loft, large and open, devoid of furniture. It had windows facing the street and side yards, and only had one door on the wall that didn’t have windows. It was closed.

I stepped forward and whirled on my heel, pointing the shotgun in the corner by the stairs. Nobody there. I whirled back around to the only door. I took a second look at the windows—all closed, with graffiti marking the walls. I didn’t have the time to take a good look at any of it, and returned my gaze to the door. Slowly, I approached it, never letting my gaze off of the handle. If it so much as twitched, I was going to kneel and shout a warning. If I saw anything resembling a weapon, the squatter’s gonna catch a slug, center mass. I’m not gonna get shot or stabbed a hundred feet from my kid.

I reached the door, and positioned myself on the wall on the opposite side of the handle. I reached out and gripped it. As I did, I smelled it. It smelled like shit. Literal shit. Did this squatter use the shitter? Water’s not on, dumbass, it ain’t going anywhere, I thought.

I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the smell, counted to three in my head, and threw open the door. It banged against the wall, and I entered the next room, a bathroom, the flashlight illuminated a mirror, bouncing off it and glinting off steel, a knife—

“Hands up—ah, fuck!”

I lowered my shotgun and turned around, shuffling out of the bathroom in a hurry. I covered my mouth and nose with my hand. I laid the shotgun on the floor, reaching into my coat and pulling out a container of that vapo-rub stuff. I unscrewed the cap and rubbed a generous amount on my upper lip.

Any smart cop will keep some strong scented stuff on hand for shit like this: body discovery. I pulled out my MagLite and scanned the room again. No sign of whoever the fuck that was. I reached down and picked up my shotgun, turning off the underbarrel flashlight. I slung it diagonally, and scanned the floor. The muddy footprints went right into the bathroom. I took a few steps to the side and looked in—no window in there. When I threw the door open, I heard it slam against the wall. If he was hiding in that corner, it would’ve hit him instead. And that certainly isn’t him laying in the tub. Unless he contorted himself into cupboard under the sink. . . Oh what the fuck. I looked in the room again for a spare pair of boots, in case he took them off and ran. Nope. No boots to be found, except on the body.

I sighed.

“Dispatch, Car 8.”

“Car 8, Dispatch, go ahead.” Carl took a more serious tone with how I called in.

“Found a body in the squatter house. No sign of the intruder. Perp straight up pulled a Houdini on me. Notify the coroner.”

“Aw, shit, Charlie. I’ll have to drag Rutherford out of bed.”

“Tell him to come in quiet. It ain’t getting any peachier here. And tell him to bring some of that peppermint oil, the real strong stuff. Body’s been here a while.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m callin’ Rutherford. Hold onto your tits,” Carl said.

I traced the path leading to the bathroom. That’s the strangest shit. When I came up, it was definitely  _ wet _ . That guy  _ just  _ walked up here. I  _ saw _ him.

It’s crusted and dried now. Been dry for a while, by the looks of it.

The beam of my flashlight traced over the graffiti. You had your usual “Jerry wuz here” type of shit, and your surprisingly artistic renditions of “SOUTH SIDE” and other slang terms that mean jack to me. Guess I’ll have to learn it sooner or later. You know, it’s a damn shame some of these graffiti artists don’t go legit. They have real talent and vision, some of ‘em. . . 

My beam stopped on the streetside wall. The wall had four windows, evenly spaced. The two closest to the center were bay windows, and you could lay in the window and be partially outside of the wall. Between the two bay windows, the wall was untouched, unlike practically every other inch of the wall. It didn’t look like it had been scrubbed clean, or anything, but as if it had never been vandalized.

It just didn’t look right. That little patch of virgin canvas, so to speak. Not even a crude drawing of a dick scratched in with a pocket knife, or anything. As if the squatters  _ knew  _ it was reserved, or special. 

It made me think of some kind of escape room thing Em and I had went to in Dallas when we were still dating. You had to solve puzzles and shit, and sometimes they were real natural progressions of logic and others required momentous leaps of reasoning. One of the puzzles involved a painting with a blank spot, which revealed a code in invisible ink when exposed to a blacklight. 

I didn’t carry a blacklight on me, but there might be one in the cruiser. . .

~~

“Now what’n’ah hell is  _ that _ ?” Rutherford said, scratching his prodigious beard.

I shrugged. “No idea,” I said. My blacklight idea paid off. Someone had painted on the blank spot in blood, and cleaned it off. After first trying the blacklight on its own and getting nothing, I went back to the cruiser again and got the Luminol spray. See, even when you scrub the blood away, there’s parts of it left that can react to agents in Luminol to produce a glow—ah, fuck it, you’ve seen CSI, right? No blood, spritz-spritz, shine a light, boom, blood.

The painting consisted of a circle scrubbed into the wall, with three notches arranged around it, spaced evenly, vaguely reminding me of the radiation hazard symbol, though the center was much larger in proportion to the notches. Directly above this was a line that came up then circled around into a hook shape, and that plus the dot could have looked like a question mark, if not for the notches and the other two lines. In the bottom left, a line came straight away from the circle to the left and then curved to the right, and in the bottom right another line went away to the right before curling left into a lazy spiral.

“Suicide,” came a voice.

Simmons was standing by the bathroom with a camera, taking a few shots. The flash briefly blinded me.

“When’d you get here?” I asked.

“A bit ago. You’ve been looking at that wall for a hot minute, Hawthorne.”

“You ever seen something like this?”

Simmons bit his lip. “No.”

“Think the stiff drew that?”

“No.”

“Then whose blood is it?”

Simmons shrugged. “Probably just some punk kid going through his edgy Satanic phase. Don’t worry about it.”

“That’s a lot of blood for a phase—”

“ _ Don’t _ . Worry about it.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but Rutherford cut me off.

“Now you come in here and help me lift the body onto the stretcher. . .”

~~

I unlocked my front door and stepped inside, sighing. The sun was warming my back, before the oak door cut off the sunlight. I could smell bacon cooking and the whirring of a microwave.

“Charlie?” Em called.

“Hey,” I said, taking off my coat and starting to unbutton my shirt. It needs a thorough wash. You can still smell stiff on it.

“Bad night?” she said.

“All I said was ‘hey,’” I said, passing the kitchen and flashing her a smile. She looked beautiful. Her hair was up and lazy, all splayed out from a good night’s rest.

“There’s a happy ‘hey’ and then there’s  _ that _ ‘hey,’” Em said, smiling back. “Good morning.”

“Hey, hey, hey. Hay is for horses, Em,” I said, slipping out of my boots in our laundry room. I was out of my pants in another second.

“Care for some breakfast before you hit the  _ hay _ ?” Em called.

I can’t eat meat right now. It’s been quite a few hours since Rutherford took the stiff away, but I had to keep thinking about it. Had to write reports, give statements. . . 

“Yeah,” I said, entering the kitchen.

“Ooh,  _ scandalous _ ,” Em said, eying my state of dress.

“God forbid a man walk around in his boxers,” I said. “Hand me a plate.”

She gave me a look.

“Hand me a plate,  _ please _ ,” I said, smiling.

Emily handed me a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs with a loving smile. “I’ll bring you something to drink,” she said, going to the fridge. I watched her walk, with her sleepy little short-shorts on. Man, I love my wife.

“I love you,” I said.

“Love you too,” she said, almost like a reflex.

I walked to the bedroom, put the plate on the nightstand, and fell into bed. I took a few seconds before I rolled over. Emily followed me with a glass of some liquor.

“Just a little something to soothe your nerves,” she said, “but only a  _ little _ something.”

Indeed, there was precious little in the glass. Ever since she went to that “Proud Police Wives” meet-up in Dallas she’s been paranoid I’ll become an alcoholic. Well, to be fair to her, the job does carry its risks. . . 

“And for the rest of the meal,” she said, placing down a mug of warm milk. Also in her hand was a formula bottle.

“You need me to, uh, check on Johnny?” I said. “Change a diaper, maybe?”

“No, no, it’s okay,” she said, smiling wide. “I’ve got Johnny. You just get some sleep, Mr. Officer Deputy Man.” She booped my nose with her index finger, still smiling as she walked away.

Yet, I could tell her smile was so, so tired.

What was that bloody painting all about? Where the hell did that trespasser get off to? Shit, I don’t believe in ghosts, but. . . And what crawled up Simmons’ ass?

I sighed, then sipped the whiskey. I guess I could go for some eggs. . .


End file.
